


Difficulties of Departing

by nuclearmuffins



Series: The Caster's Canticle [7]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Babies!, Blue Hawke (Dragon Age), Custom Hawke (Dragon Age), F/M, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Handers babies!, Mage Hawke (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 00:25:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19162054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuclearmuffins/pseuds/nuclearmuffins
Summary: Hawke receives that fateful letter from Varric and wrestles with the dilemma of leaving her family behind.





	Difficulties of Departing

**Author's Note:**

> **Original prompt from Reddit:** The moment Hawke receives the letter from Varric asking them to come to Skyhold.

“Ow!”

The sound of Mal’s voice yelping in pain lifted Maura’s head up from the stubborn oak leaf she had been trying to stitch all day. As soon as her eyes found her son, standing near the window with his finger stuck in his mouth, her needle and hoop were thoughtlessly cast aside as she rushed over to his side.

“Mal, love? What’s wrong?” she dropped to her knees in front of him, lowering herself to his height. Her heart gave a thump as he held out his finger for her, revealing a gash already seeping drops of blood. “How did this happen?” she tried to keep her voice as steady as possible for his sake.

“The birdie bit me!” Her eyes followed to where he pointed to a raven sitting on their windowsill, now pecking at the wood of the pane. She shot the bird as dirty a look as she could manage before turning back to her son.

“Did you bother it? Birds don’t like that very much.”

“No,” he pouted. “I just liked the pretty feathers.”

“Did you try to take one from him?” she tried coaxing gently from her son, brows raising curiously. Now a clearer picture of what had happened settled in her mind. Mal was constantly driven to distraction by the feathers on Anders’ coat, snatching them up whenever they fell- provided Garahel hadn’t gotten to them first. For reasons none of them could ever fathom, the dog had always thought feathers looked like a particularly tasty snack.

“No…” Mal looked down at his feet, shuffling slightly in his spot. Both of Maura’s brows raised as she leveled her eyes on him with a knowing gleam Maura raised another eyebrow, fixing him with a _look._ “...Yes.”

She laughed, mussing his head of brown curls. “Well, that’s today’s lesson learned. Don't take feathers from-” The thought trailed from her mind, unfinished, as her eyes drew themselves to the bird again. Clutched in its talons was an envelope, with the word _Embers_ scrawled onto the front in ever-familiar handwriting.

Only one person had ever called her that.

Maura turned back to Mal with a forced, but gentle smile as she leaned forward to kiss his forehead while her thumbs rubbing circles into his little cheeks. “Go find papa, love. He’ll take care of that finger for you. He's outside in the garden.”

Mal’s small face lit up with a smile, that same one that always managed to tug at all her right heartstrings. She’d sworn - really only four years ago, but it had felt like a lifetime - that she would do anything to protect that little smile. He bounded out of the room, joined seconds later by Garahel barking at his heels. That old boy mostly spent his waning days dozing in front of the fire, but he never ran out of energy when it came to Mal. The smile lingered on her lips a moment longer as she watched the two of them run outside. Once Mal disappeared from view she stood up and straightened, frowning as she turned towards the bird still perched on her window.

The raven held out its talon for her as her hesitant fingers stretched to take the envelope from him. She weighed the parchment in her hands, her uncertainty of its contents seeming to give the envelope more force, as if someone had stuffed stones in it. This could only be from one person, someone she trusted him with all her heart, yet it felt as if all the alarms in her head been set off. Something about this seemed… wrong. Varric usually sent his letters through Aveline or Fenris. A messenger bird suggested that this was something urgent. That this couldn’t wait.

The red wax seal emblazoning the back drew her eyes first. Cast into a mold of a wide, peering eye over a stylized sunburst, bisected ominously by a sword. A Chantry symbol. With hurrying hands, she broke the seal, reaching into the envelope and pulling out a collection of hastily written words, the dark blue ink just barely composed enough as to not be an illegible scrawl. Varric’s handwriting stared back at her -

 

> Hawke,
> 
> Shit, I didn’t even want to send you this, not after everything that happened, but after this whole mess, I couldn’t leave you in the dark anymore. I thought we’d done it, stopped it all, but it’s not just templars and mages anymore, it’s _him_. It’s Corypheus.
> 
> I know. I thought we killed him too. We both saw his body lying on the ground. But he’s back, somehow _._ He’s got an army of demons, an insane Tevinter cult backing him, and a shit ton of templars hopped up on red lyrium. He buried Haven under an avalanche. Most people made it out thanks to the Inquisitor, but there’s a lot more who didn’t. I was thinking you could contact a Warden for information and meet us. Not Carver; he and Daisy are still getting all the alienage refugees settled. If you could find a way to get to Stroud and maybe help finish what we started.
> 
> You remember what happened the last time we met Corypheus, and we’re surrounded by ex-Templars who probably want Blondie’s head on a pike, so it’ll be best if you could come alone. I’ve got trusted people who can watch over him and Mal, I swear both of them will be fine. You’re probably still somewhere in the Marches. Rivaini’s ship should be docked in Wycome; she’ll take you to Highever whenever you’re ready. Fenris’ll come to get you in a few days, so you'll have company at least to Wycome. We’re somewhere in the Frostbacks. The bird knows the directions from there.
> 
> The Inquisitor - Lavellan - he’s a decent sort. Definitely has questionable taste in women, but he’s got a good shot at fixing Blondie’s mess, I’d say. If there’s anyone who can stop all this, it’s him.
> 
> Say hi to Mal for me. And Anders. I guess.
> 
> Varric.

Her trembling legs found a nearby chair, and she sat herself down in it as she scanned over Varric’s writing again and again. No matter how many times her eyes poured over the page, they always came back to just one thing, almost as if the word was screaming itself off the page.

_Corypheus_.

Alive, somehow. She swore she- no. It couldn’t be.

But Varric wouldn’t lie. He’d lie profusely to everyone else without a drop of hesitation or remorse, twist them pretty tales of whatever he thought they wanted to hear, but not to her.  _Never_ to her. He couldn’t have been telling anything but the truth, which meant…

_This is my fault. I did this. I freed him, and now-_

Mal’s voice drifted in through her open window, enthusiastically shouting “Papa! Papa!” Joining in seconds later was Anders’ light laughter, his voice quieter as he said something she couldn’t quite make out. Her two men.

She couldn’t leave them now. Not when Mal was shooting up so fast by the day, not when she might be the only one keeping Anders’ mind from completely fraying. She couldn't- Part of her wished she could refuse, to let this go and just stay here with them.

But she had to. This was something she had to fix.

The door creaked open and the familiar sound of boots scuffing against wooden floor greeted her ears, but she didn't turn around to look. Her eyes were still firmly fixed on the letter in her hands; even though she had processed every single word on the page already, her mind was still trying to rearrange them into something that made sense, something that felt normal.

_This didn't seem real._ Nothing  _seemed real anymore._

“One finger fixed, good as new. How did he ever manage that?” Anders’ voice drifted over to her. Lips pressed against her hair for a brief moment, then a hand slid onto her shoulder. She took it in her grasp as her eyes closed for just a moment. _Just one moment of peace with them, that’s all I’m asking for._

She forced her head up to see Anders standing over her, Mal lifted in his arms. Side-by-side their resemblance was so obvious it was uncanny. Mal was a miniature of his father, with his wild brown hair the only part he seemed to share with her.

It made knowing what she had to do so much harder.

“What’s that, love?” Anders nodded towards the letter still in her hand.

Wordlessly, she handed the sheet over to him, her lips pursing. Setting Mal down on the ground and letting him run off giggling with Garahel, he pulled up a chair beside her, eyes already scanning each word on the parchment. With her feet shuffling, she watched his expression change from a confused grimace to wide-eyed bewilderment as his eyes moved their way down the vellum.

“This isn’t possible,” he breathed as he finished reading the last sentence, folding the letter into quarters, as if by making the parchment shrink he could make their imminent problems shrink with it. _Oh, love, it's never that simple,_ she wanted to say.

But Maura just shook her head, her nails on the edge of her teeth. “Varric wouldn't lie. Not to me.”

“How do you know it's actually Varric sending the letter?” Sharp suspicion edged into Anders’ voice.

Maura picked up the envelope that had fluttered to the floor in her hurry to read its contents and held it out so he could see the name emblazoned on the front. “Who else do we know that calls me _Embers_?”

“I-” Anders rubbed his face with one hand, the letter still clutched in the other. “We _killed_ him. You, me, your brother, Varric. We all saw that body.”

“I know we did. I-I thought it was all finished too.”

“How is this possible?”

“I wish I knew, love. But-” she swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “I… I have to go. It's my fault that he's loose. I can't let this go unfinished.”

For a moment he just stared at the small parchment square in his hand, turning it over and over. When he finally spoke, his voice was strained. “I can’t-” The words all but choked out of Anders’ mouth. “I can't let you go alone.”

She shook her head. “You know what the letter said. They'd kill you on sight. And what happened the last time we met him? I-” she took in a breath as jagged as the edge of a saw blade.

The words sat on the tip of her tongue, trying to push through, to be spoken. _I couldn't stand to watch you be taken over like that again. I don't want to think of you like that, to know that's what you could become. Especially without me._

“I can't let that happen to you,” was the only thing she could say through the lump of bile and tears forming in her throat. “I can’t-”

Anders set the letter on the ground, reaching for her hand with his now empty one. The work-roughened skin of both their hands, warm against each other. He leaned forward to press his forehead against hers, carefully wiping a tear she hadn’t even realized was there with his thumb. Something he had said to her what seemed like an age ago, in another life even, pushed itself to the front of her mind just then.

_I wish we could stay like this forever, love._

But they hadn’t been able to then. Even that excursion had been marred by Orlesian and Qunari conspiracy. The explosion had wiped away all traces of their old life, and she still wasn’t sure they had managed to pick up all the pieces then. And now, if she didn’t fix this, the precarious life they had built so laboriously for Mal, for themselves… it could all be destroyed without mercy.

Slowly she lifted the knot of their entangled fingers, closed her eyes, and brought it to her lips. When her eyelids fluttered open again, Anders had tears running across his own cheeks.

“I still won’t let you do this alone,” he whispered. “Not because of me, not because…”

She could hear everything unspoken in his tone. _Not because of my mistakes. Not because of everything I did._

Despite herself, despite everything, she smiled. Her hand came to rest upon his tear stained cheek, hot against her palm. “We can’t expose Mal to this. Someone needs to stay here with him.”

“We could take him to… Aveline. Or your brother and Merrill.”

She shook her head. “You’d be killed if you stepped foot in Kirkwall again. And Carver and Merrill are occupied enough with helping the alienage elves.” Her thumb ran over his cheek. “I waited for you for three years, love. What’s, oh- a few months?”

He swallowed hard, the lump obvious in his throat as he pressed his lips together and took a long breath before he spoke again. The words came out slow, measured, strangled. “Promise you’ll come back to me.”

She wanted to say _promise you’ll still be here when I get back_ but stopped herself. That was never a certainty; she’d known it since the day they met. Sometime in the past ten years, she had just accepted it as a part of loving him.

So all she said was “Of course I will,” pressing a kiss to his hand.

* * *

 

True to Varric's word, Fenris arrived on their doorstep a few days later.

“Uncle Fen! You’re here!” Mal ran up to Fenris, grabbing onto one of the elf’s legs and hugging it tightly. Fenris looked dazed for a moment, almost flinching at the contact, but then hesitantly reached down to pat his small shoulder.

Maura knew better than to try and hug him like she would any of their other visitors (though she’d done that twice before with varying success), so she gave him a smile and a brief brush against his arm instead - affectionate, but nothing that would make him uncomfortable. “How's the slaver hunting going?”

Fenris shrugged. “They’re getting what they deserve. Are you prepared to leave?”

She shook her head. “Not just yet. I have to take care of a few things first,” she motioned for Mal to come back to her side. Mal disentangled himself from Fenris’s leg, coming to grab onto her hand.

“Where are you going, momma?” he asked. His eyes were wide as saucers, his mouth twisted into a frown.

Maura knelt down to meet Mal’s eyes. “Remember when Papa and I told you that I have to go away for a little while?”

Mal’s little face scrunched up for a moment. “Yes.”

She took his arm, tracing circles on his shirt with her thumb. “Well, Uncle Fen is here to take me away. Papa will still be here, so you won’t be alone.”

He tilted his head, not unlike a little bird. “ _Why_ is Uncle Fen taking you away?”

She searched for the proper words to use for a moment, racking her head for solutions on how to phrase it best for his ears. “Uncle Varric has something he wants me to do, but he’s somewhere far away right now. So Uncle Fen is taking me to where Uncle Varric is so I can help him.”

A door closed somewhere nearby, and Mal’s hand dropped from her own. He ran, shouting “Papa!”, into Anders’ ever welcoming arms. “Uncle Fen’s here!”

She turned just in time to see the smile on Anders’ face falter. “ _Fenris._ ”

Fenris scowled, the slight smile he had worn for her and Mal wearing off in an instant. “ _Mage_.”

“Take care of momma, Uncle Fen!” Mal called out from Anders’ arms.

“Yes,” Anders snarled through gritted teeth. “If anything happens to her…”

Fenris glared back at Anders with mingled irritation and contempt in his eyes. “You insinuate I would _let_ anything happen to Hawke? That _is_ rather rich, coming from y-”

“Fenris. _Anders_ ,” she chided. “It's been a decade. Please give it a rest. At least for my sake, and Mal's.”

Both men shrank back like scolded children.

“Please don’t murder each other while I’m upstairs!” she called down, already hurrying up the steps. Maker knew what they could do to each other if she wasn’t there to settle them down.

She hadn’t taken it out in nearly two years now, hadn’t so much as looked at it, but she knew exactly where it was - in a dusty wooden trunk below their bed. She nearly coughed from the dust cloud as she pulled it out, but the metal still gleamed like new as she took the pieces out. The armour that had denoted her old title - _Champion of Kirkwall._

It fit, still. Her body had changed in the years she had last put it on, grown rounder, for the same reason there was an empty crib sitting in their shed unused. The metal pauldron buckled into place. The fur collar fit snugly around her neck. It felt a little as if she was putting on a costume, a recreation of an old life. The woman who had worn this armour the first time she had faced Corypheus felt like a ghost that still lingered in her bones.

The door creaked open, and Maura tilted her head up to see Anders walking into the room. She gave him a weak, nervous smile, as much for her benefit as for his amber eyes ( _amber still, not blue)_ , hollow and expressionless, swept over her in the Champion's mantle. _He hasn't seen me dressed like this in almost two years_. “I can’t believe you willingly let Mal alone with Fenris,” she tried to joke, to diffuse the strange tightness in the air hanging between them. He didn’t respond as he crossed the distance over to their bed, coming to sit next to her atop their sheets.

Her hand reached out for his fidgeting ones, fingers twisting and unsteady. “I don’t think I’ll be gone that long.” She knocked a knee against his, trying to inject some levity into them both, despite all the knots that had neatly tied themselves in her stomach. “Knowing Varric, he’ll have exaggerated this all for the sake of a good story.” She knew it wasn’t true, how silly it sounded once it had left her lips. But she hoped. Maker, she hoped.

Fingers traced the shape of his hand with memorized motion, over the ridges of knuckles and small, fine lines that had begun to manifest themselves with the passing of time. _Say something, love. Anything._

But he didn’t speak, just slid his hand away from hers across her hips, coming to rest at her side. Somewhere, his lips caught hers, first nothing more than a brush of two mouths against each other. But something had yielded in her, and she opened to let tongue slip in. Her hand weaved into his hair, the other pulling his collar to bring him closer to her, pressing him as close as she could with the awkwardness of armour as a barrier. He tugged in return at her waist, their combined force hooking them together.

Their movement became frenzied, as if whatever barrier they had cast on themselves had disintegrated at each other’s touch. Fire curled under her skin, warm embers building inside of her like the feeling of calling flame to her from across the Veil. The rest of the world fell away. No letter. No Corypheus. Just the two of them, here, now, together.

Finally, she pulled back from his lips, the taste of salt dripping into her mouth. Their frazzled, delirious breaths mingled with each other as she tugged on the back of his neck, pulling him to rest his forehead against her own.

“Come back to me,” he whispered against her lips, the sensation soft, gentle, unlike how the force of his mouth over hers had felt moments ago. “Because I don’t know how to live unless it’s with you.”

She weakly nodded as she took all the force she had to unglue her head from his. “I made you a promise.” How badly she wanted to stay right here. To forget everything that was going on past their walls, to be able to shut her eyes and close off her mind beyond just them.

How she _wished_. But she had long learned things were never that simple.

She knew if she’d stayed a moment longer she would never have the strength to, that all of her resolve would melt away in an instant and she would want to do nothing more than let the world crash around her.

As she left, she silently cursed her selfishness as she let her hand brush for the briefest of moments against the doorframe.

* * *

 

“Are you ready to go?” Fenris asked, leaning against a wall and watching her approach in her old Champion's armour, travelling cloak in her arms and golden staff in one hand. Somewhere, the sound of a dog barking and child’s laughter echoed. Mal and Garahel were back to their usual antics.

_Go back and say goodbye_ , a tugging in her mind said. _He’s your son._

But she knew if she did, all the power she had summoned to bring herself to be able to leave would have fallen away in a thrice. It was only by remembering the promise she had made to Anders - _I’ll come back to you_ \- that she was able to stop herself and force out a reply to Fenris.

“Yes,” She fastened the cloak around her shoulders, the heavy red fabric falling to her ankles. From the perch it had made for itself the past few days, the raven flew onto her shoulder, ready to take her to wherever Varric was. “We shouldn’t keep Isabela waiting.”

That was a lie. She knew it, Fenris knew it, but neither of them said anything, just started walking in silence side-by-side. But she would never be any more ready than she was this very moment. Her fingers gripped tighter around her staff, the one that had been her father’s, hoping for some wisp of hope to come to her.

_I have to finish what I started._

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to FactoryKat for her help editing and revising this. Kate, if you're reading this, you're an absolute angel. And as always to the Discord server for their support and encouragement.


End file.
